Moussa: We run to win not to do favor for any presidential contender

CAIRO – 29 January 2018: Chairperson of El Ghad Party Moussa Mostafa Moussa held a press conference after he submitted his candidacy application to the National Election Authority (NEA) on Monday, explaining his last-minute decision to run in the 2018 Presidential election.

Moussa claimed that his party is the only entity that conducted field studies to put plans, before announcing its participation in the elections. “People are right to question why we did not announce we were running earlier,” the candidate added.



“After the withdrawal of other candidates, we questioned how the situation would be. We are working on behalf of Egypt and not on behalf of anyone else. I fully realize the problems of Egyptians, and we have out-of-the-box solutions that we are going to present as proposed programs,” Moussa stated.

He asserted that the party has presence in 26 out of the 27 governorates, with 450 bureaus. “We gathered 40,000 endorsement forms, which would be very difficult to review with the NEA, so we decided to depend on the 20 endorsements by parliament members we received,” Moussa explained.

The withdrawal of other potential candidates, Human Rights lawyer Khaled Ali and former Prime Minister Ahmed Shafik, as well as the ineligibility of former Chief of Staff Sami Anan drove the party to make the decision following initial reluctance.

Moussa stated that encouraging investments and resolving the problems of existing ones is the key to boosting exports and improving Egyptians’ economic status. He added that developing clear mechanisms to achieve different goals is more important than setting targets to be met in specific deadlines.



Moussa’s program is aligned with the social capitalism ideology he seeks to promote among youth, he said. He clarified that he would cooperate with “respectful” qualified parliament members to develop and accomplish different plans.



The candidate emphasized that the country should be ready to react to any potential harm resulting from the construction and reservoir filling of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD). He said that Egypt should also be cautious of Turkey’s actions in the region as it established a military base in the Sudanese island Suakin.



“My stance over the Muslim Brotherhood is the same as that of all Egyptians. No compromises, no retreat, no tolerance,” Moussa stipulated, asserting that his program is based on the inclusion of all social segments whose cooperation and solidarity is a must in the current intricate phase Egypt is going through.



Moussa's statement on the outlawed brotherhood refers to most of Egyptians' rejection of any reconciliation or pardoning of its leaders and members for its terrorist acts against civilians and security forces.